nd, of the comfortable quarters he had exchanged for his present
wet and perilous berth, and he began to feel that he had _paid too
dear for his whistle_. Runaways usually feel thus sooner or later,
since few of them ever realize their anticipations.

The cold, dreary night wore away slowly, and the wind continued to
howl, and the breakers to dash and roar, until after the dawn of the
following morning. Benjamin was never more rejoiced to see daylight
appear than he was after that dismal and perilous night. It was the
more pleasant to him because the wind began to abate, and there was a
fairer prospect of reaching their place of destination. As soon as the
tumult of the wind and waves had subsided, they weighed anchor, and
steered for Amboy, where they arrived just before night, "having been
thirty hours on the water without victuals, or any drink but a bottle
of filthy rum."

In the evening Benjamin found himself feverish, having taken a severe
cold by the exposure of the previous night. With a hot head and a
heavy heart he retired to rest, first, however, drinking largely of
cold water, because he had somewhere read that cold water was good for
fever. This was one of the advantages he derived from his early habit
of reading. But for his taste for reading, which led him to spend his
leisure moments in poring over books, he might never have known this
important fact, which perhaps saved him a fit of sickness. Availing
himself of this knowledge, he drank freely of water before he retired,
and the consequence was, that he sweat most of the night, and arose
the next morning comparatively well. So much advantage from loving
books!

Boys never have occasion to deplore the habit of reading, provided
their books are well chosen. They usually find that they are thrice
paid for all the time spent in this way. Sooner or later they begin to
reap the benefits of so wise a course. A few years since, a young man
was travelling in the State of Maine, procuring subscribers to a
newspaper. On passing a certain farm, he observed some bricks of a
peculiar colour, and he traced them to their clay-bed, and satisfied
himself that the material could be applied to a more valuable purpose
than that of making bricks. He at once purchased the farm for three
hundred pounds, and, on his return to Boston, sold one half of it for
eight hundred pounds. The secret of his success lay in a bit of
knowledge he acquired at school. He had given some atte